News

Van Vleuten wins in Melbourne in her debut of the rainbow jersey

Wed 31 Jan 2018

World time trial champion Annemiek van Vleuten showed her class along the streets of Melbourne today, taking the victory on stage two of the Women’s Herald Sun Tour presented by Let’s Go Motorhomes, in a lung busting 1.6kilometre race against the clock.

Wearing her rainbow stripe skinsuit for the first time, Van Vleuten was in a league of her own stopping the clock with a time two second faster than her nearest rival Katrin Garfoot (Team Australia) with New Zealand champion Georgia Williams claiming an impressive third place to make it two on the podium for Mitchelton-SCOTT.

Early hot-seat

The first rider to set a threatening time was Nettie Edmondson (Wiggle-High5) with a time of 2:13:64 that left her sitting in the hot-seat for a significant peroid before the final ten or so riders began to post times good enough to knock her out of the top spot.

Riding rainbows

In the first timed event since winning the world championship time trial last year in Bergen, Van Vleuten was finally able to debut her new rainbow skinsuit in a spectacular fashion. With large crowds in the busy centre of Melbourne, it proved to be the perfect stage to show off the new outfit in the team’s home country.

Annemiek van Vleuten - First place

“It’s so good to win in this jersey. I’m so proud and to do it here in Melbourne, in Australia, for my Australian team.”

"I didn’t expect this to be honest because I suffered yesterday so hard in the last 20km and I know some girls had a more easy ride to the finish."

“I was not feeling so much pressure because I know I am not in top top shape and I had a really hard day yesterday so I didn’t feel like the favourite today but of course you want to go hard when you are in the rainbow.”

“If you want to win a prologue you have to take risks, but I did a lot of recon of the course so I think that helped and they were calculated risks.”

Georgia Williams - Third place

“I definitely wasn't expecting that. I was hoping to get in the top ten but to get on the podium is awesome and it’s super special to wear my jersey.”

“It’s definitely a track distance race and I still have a bit of the track power in my legs so that definitely helped.”

“It’s a shame we didn’t win the race overall but having two on the podium today is really cool.”